In a world with an intellectual history of seven thousand years behind it, where do Pakistanis stand, what are they doing, what do they aspire to be, and what ought they to be doing? This Blog takes Notes of all of that ...

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Military courts: a moral perspective

A
person who is murdered, has he any rights? That question may seem strange. Let
me add another dimension to it: What’s the spirit of law? Does it exist for the
rights of the murderers to be protected? Or, it exists for the alive so that
they enjoy their life safe and sound? Last year, in a seminar on the citizens’
fundamental rights when I made a comment that most of the NGOs are always ahead
in safeguarding the rights of those who are accused of capital crimes but why
they never turn up to defend the rights of those who are murdered, one activist
really turned up to throw an angry question upon me: “What do you mean? The
accused has no rights? And we defend murderers?” I said: “What I mean is that
the one who was murdered he too had a right to his life, why was he deprived of
that inalienable right? Who was supposed to protect that right of him?”

Here
too, my contention is the same: What about the rights of those who are murdered,
and that whether law has anything to do in the first place with the protection of
their life? I presume who were murdered for a reason or for no reason at all
the state was bound to protect all of them. My question those who have chosen
the duty of defending the rights of the accused especially of capital crimes,
why don’t they give a thought to the rights of those unfortunate ones who lose
their lives? Partially in this sense, idea of the military courts makes sense.

Let’s
try to delineate the issue as a solution for which the establishment of
military courts is under discussion and which is one of the 20 points of the
National Action Plan to tackle the menace of terrorism and extremism. In fact,
the normal law is not able to take and complete its due course as is required:
Delays, inefficiency on the part of the prosecution as well as the courts, fears
and threats, complicity, etc. mar its performance. Both types of arguments for
and against the military (speedy or special) courts are influencing the debate
and public opinion in both directions. The military courts established by
martial law regimes in the past are being used as a model to judge the proposed
courts. That’s misplaced.

Leaving
aside the both camps, I want to argue from the point of view of Law, and from
the point of view of Morality. As for the first, so many others are also
emphasizing that the measures which the 20 points envisage should have been
taken quite earlier, since the day Pakistan came into being. That delay of
about 68 years is more than criminal mainly on the part of the politicians who
utilized the state for their Ashraafi interests and led it astray to what we
witness happening today.

In
principle, the first and foremost function of law is to protect all without any
discrimination and make sure that no unlawful activity takes place, i.e. no
such conflict brews which culminates in anyone’s murder. In Pakistan, however,
the law has completely been negligent of this function of it; mostly because
here the civil society and media took inspiration from the advanced world which
has already achieved a peaceful lawful society and that’s why their point of
focus is on ensuring the rights of the accused. Our society, on the contrary,
is miserably a violent and unlawful society; that’s why in the first instance
it requires its focus to stay on ensuring everyone’s right to life, property
and liberty.

As
for Morality, no debate in Pakistan, including the current one on military
courts, has ever been mindful of it. It’s a non grata issue in the Paki
intellectual, political, religious milieu. Let me remind that Law grows and
flourishes in the soil of morality; in the absence of morality, no law can make
any difference. Nonetheless, it’s Law which helps morality gain its lost dominion
as it did in Europe. So in a lawless and devoid of morality Pakistan, we can
start with establishing the rule of law, which with time will restore morality
to its due status.

It
needs not arguing that Law in an important sense is morals codified; in that it
presents a moral view also. However when codified, Law takes its own course, be
it moral or not. It is in this context that I want to introduce a moral
problem, which the Peshawar massacre of children has brought to the fore in
bold relief. No qualms about that: Let the Law take its course, which for
innumerable reasons it has not taken; and it’s no time to inquire about its
whys, while about 50, 000 innocent citizens have already become the victims of
terrorism and extremism. The circumstances have put us face to face with a
moral choice: Let the innocent citizens die at the hands of terrorists and
extremists or take extraordinary measures to exterminate the murderers!

In
the US, moral philosophers are employing empirical research and experiments to
see how people respond to such moral dilemmas. One Problem of Trolleyology is
being heatedly argued about; one variant of it is like this: Pull a signal
lever and divert a trolley-car which otherwise is going to kill five persons
tied to the track; but by diverting it to a side track you kill a person tied
there. So what’s your choice? Most people want one should die, not five persons!
In contradistinction to it, our choice is far too clear since on the one side are
hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens and on the other “jet black”
murderers! The only risk in setting up the military courts is the miscarriage
of justice in some cases, the magnitude of which may only be measured after the
legislation stands completed.

In
a broader perspective, that would help shift the emphasis especially on the
protection of everyone’s right to life; and though it requires a wider approach
and a lot of other measures to succeed in the longer term, it may serve as the
first step towards putting the state and society on a peaceful and lawful track.

Note: This article was completed on December 29, 2014, and was originally posted in January, 2015.

The Blogger

The blogger cherishes a cosmopolitan spirit; he is a moralist; a rationalist; a philosopher; a political philosopher; he believes in Classical Liberalism, as a Theory of Conduct.
He has substantially contributed to the founding of the first free market think tank of Pakistan, Alternate Solutions Institute.
He is a writer who wrote / published dozens of articles on a variety of issues, and is author of 4 books.
He wrote / published short-stories in Punjabi, a regional language of Pakistan.
He composes poetry both in Urdu and Punjabi, and has already published one collection.